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Saturday, September 10, 2011

The Apprehenders a.k.a. Officer of the Year (Chae-po-wang) 2011

The Apprehenders a.k.a. Officer of the Year is one of the
few bright spots in what has been a relatively disappointing commercial output
for chungmoro in early 2011. Park Joong-hoon, one of the heavyweight stars of past and current
Korean cinema who has experienced a renaissance recently with
strong roles in Haeundae (2009), Hanji (2011), and especially My Dear
Desperado (2010), subsequent to a three-year hiatus, teams up with Lee
Seon-gyoon, who has impressed recently with roles in Hong Sang-soo’s Oki’s
Movie and the solid rom-com Petty Romance (both from last year), for this
effective and often-hilarious action comedy.

Heads of police demand results

The film walks on often trod ground as it focuses on the
police in Korea and their less than noble priorities when it comes to
apprehending criminals. Even the slightest exposure to Korean cinema will
result in this being no surprise but although it doesn’t go to the lengths of
exposing a perceived national pariah in the way that the likes of Peppermint
Candy (1999), The Unjust (2010) and many others have, it strangely brought to
mind my favorite television series, The Wire (2002-2008). While one has really
little to do with the other, I was reminded of one of the main themes which ran
through most of the series, 'duking the stats' to make the endeavors of the
department far more palatable than they really are, for the benefit of
perception and politics.

The Apprehenders uses this statistical obsession as its
starting point, Detective Hwang (Park) is the big kahuna of law enforcement
with more arrests than anyone, he is the reigning Officer of the Year, while
police academy graduate Detective Jeong (Lee) desperately wants the prize money that this
honor affords in order to buy a house with his bride-to-be. They are the lead
detectives in two competing precincts, Mapo and Seodaemun, who seem hellbent on
upstaging one another and stealing each other’s collars. While this large scale
game of one-upmanship and bravado is essentially a way to pit the main
protagonists against each other, it does cleverly and surreptitiously
introduces the idea that policing in Korea is not performed with the intent
that it should be. As far as legal, judiciary, and enforcement careers go,
there has always been a problem, the world over, as to how one should balance
the careerist advancement of the self and the moralistic pursuit of the greater
good. More often than not, the greater good is a noble notion that is idealized
but not sought or achieved.

Mapo vs. Seodaemun

While the detectives go at it, there is a series of brutal
rapes that take place in the city and now the police commissioner has made it a
priority to track the perpetrator down. Naturally, a joint task force is
created between Mapo and Seodaemun and instead of helping one another catch the
criminal, they hinder eachother and arguably spoil the chance to catch him, in
effect leaving him free to violate further victims. I wonder if it was the
intent of the filmmakers to lay this quandary in our laps, was it the reckless,
arrogant, and stubborn refusal of the principal detectives to collaborate that
lead to an innocent 15-year-old being brutally beaten and raped after they let
him get away? I’m not sure that they are directly inferring this, but the possibility,
which could significantly alter how you the view the film, is there.

Aside from this, the film is a relatively straightforward
dual protagonist narrative that is played for broad laughs and these are
achieved in no small part due to the strong chemistry between Park and Lee. The
direction is even-handed and lets the actors shine through the script’s often
clever dialogue. There were three people credited with writing this screenplay,
including director Lim Chan-ik, Choi Jin-won is the only one with any work I’m
familiar with as he wrote last year’s Bad Couple, which I didn’t like very much
but this may have had more to do with the lead actors in that project rather
than his writing ability.

Det. Hwang vs. Det. Jeong

My main gripe with film was the tone it took as the
protagonists got together to genuinely catch the rapist. It got much more somber
and sadly self-serious as we made the rounds of the traumatized victims, I felt
it not in keeping with the levity of the rest of the film and when contrasted
with the main comedic thrust of the plot, it seemed borderline inappropriate.

The Apprehenders works best as a fun action comedy anchored
by two strong lead performances. The chase sequences are well-rendered, the
supporting characters each have something to add, and the great dialogue keeps
everything rolling together. A solid genre entry all around.